Poetry

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title taken from Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem I walked like a rage into the body of my life, which insisted the end of grief camein the fulfillment of desire, but desire, like loneliness, is a hunger    it willcome back       I muzzled grief            I desired with a desire beyond desireI repeated the word until it grew …

On the occasion of a Giant Eagle employee double-checking to make sureI rang the right item up at self-checkout Truth: Plátanos are the only produce item I know the PLU code for (4235). Lie: It’s my Caribbean pride. Truth: I just got tired of looking up plantain bananas every time I used self-checkout. Truth: I …

A poem about a honeymoon and a stranded giant Pacific chiton

What exists in the shadow of a thingThat casts no light? I wonder if it’s GodOn the other side collecting data fallenPast the horizon. Lonely in the centerOf the Milky Way, the ultimate introvert,What does It know of us? If we are madeOf stardust, do we collapse into ourselvesOn death, our souls an absolute density? …

A field with a lonely baseis a fish. If you want to betraditional, start a fire.My grandfather fell in lovelearning Chinese. He askedhis teacher out to the museum.An abundance. A cow in the middlethat is or is not a thing. The courtyardthat shifts to an ending. A gallery.My girlfriend and I went out alsoto the …

Mangoes ripening in a wicker basket—tough and green, you could skin themand eat them with salt. In the oven,the softening flesh of salmon,waiting to be pulled out and servedwith yellow grits and butter. My motherwas away when two visitors came knocking. What I can describe is the powder-bluechalk-outlined hopscotch box, beginningwith your first step off …

Naming is an act of caring—Martha, Toughie,Celia the Pyrenean ibex who died twice.I take 齐 for myself. To what end?Terminarchs have no say. Why don’t you want children?Because because becausebecause Sudan died lonely in his rarityand I turned twenty-eight. Becauseto be rare is to be alone. A family’s branch can start or end anywhere.I turn …

When I was a child,my fire burned black after dark.What is not seencan never be put out. I never asked,What about me? I would ponder the smallness of sparrows,too many of which I found dead or dying in the pond—floating on its algae-mirror like rufous pads of lily—their gray bibs hanging open, darkening in water,their …